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THE NATIONAL PROBLEM. 


E 458 
.1 






.F54 
Copy 


1 






^A.'M ORATION, 




DELIVERED AT 




DELPHI, N. Y., JULY 4th, 1861, 




By 

1 




CHARLES E. FITCH. 


J 


SYRACUSE : 

SUMMERS & BROTHER, BOOK & JOB PRINTERS, 

DAILY STANDARD OFFICE. 
1861, 



THE NATIONAL PROBLEM. 



^INT ORATION 



DELIVEKED AT 



DELPHI, N. Y., JULY 4th, 1861, 



BY 



CHARLES E. FITCH. 



STTR, acxjse: : 

BUMMERS & BROTHER, BOOK & JOB PRINTERS, 

DAILY STAXDAED OFFICE. 
1861. 






8*are« 






CORRESPONDENCE. 



Delphi, July 5th, 1861. 
Chas. E. Fitch, Esq., 

Dear Sir : — Upon the conclusion of your 

Oration before ns on tlie -itli inst., a motion was made and 

carried unanimously, that with your consent, the Oration be 

published. We therefore, a Committee appointed for that 

.j^ purpose, earnestly request that you will accede to the de- 

"* sire of the citizens of Delphi, as above indicated. 

Yours Respectfully, 

ElEL S. TrAOY, ) ri 'LL 

F. W. Drury, [ ^^"^°^^"^^- 



Stbacuse, 6th July, 1861. 
Gents : — 

With many thanks for your kind invitation and. 
many pleasant reminiscences of my visit with you, the 
Oration, the publication of which you desire, is hereby 
placed at your disposal. 

Yours, Yery Truly, 

Chas. E. Fitch. 
To Messrs. Eiel S. Tracy, and F. W. Drury, Committee. 



ORATION. 



Mr. President and Ladies and Gkntlemen : 

By solemn act of her Legislature, South Carolina is re- 
ported to have abolished the Fourth of July as a national 
holiday, thereby indicating that she had, (or at least desired) 
no part or lot in the glorious memories which crown with 
holiness this anniversary — thereby putting her impotent 
seal of condemnation upon the ideas embodied in the De- 
claration of Lidependence, vindicated on the battle fields 
of the Kevolution by the swords of Washington and Greene 
and Sumter, and Marion, and emblazoned all over the sacred 
shield of our liberties, the Federal Constitution. 

It is meet therefore that she and her so-styled confede- 
rate sisters, in the height of their insanit}^ should be found 
on this the natal day of the Republic, in hostile array 
against those great jDrinciples of constitutional liberty 
which have made the name of America honored through- 
out the civilized world ; Meet is it, that in their desperation 
the Southern hosts should spread their tents at Yorktown, 
upon the very ground where Washington received the 
sword of Cornwallis, and from whence the great republic 
sprang into vigorous life ; Meet that drifting as they are, 
towards a feudal aristocracy, the glittering pageant of royal- 
ty should dazzle the eyes of Southern gentlemen, and that 
with one acclaim they should cry lor an English prince and 
the petty titles of nobility. 

Appropriate as it is, that the bogus confederacy 
should thus annul the 4th of July — more appropriate 
still is it, that wc, the freemen and women of America, who 
still cherish in our heart of hearts, our noble birthright and 



the blessings wliich flow from it — who cling to the Kepub- 
lic and the hopes born of it — who read aright the lessons 
which history teaches, and view with prophetic eye the des- 
tiny which God has prepared for this land, should cele- 
brate this day with more than our accustomed fervor and 
enthusiasm; that on this anniversary of the day, upon which 
eighty live years ago the bell of Independence Mali rang forth 
in jubilant tone proclaiming "liberty to the land and all 
the inhabitants thereof," we should calmly review all the 
blessings which liberty brings with it — and the full cost of 
their perpetuation. 

Glad am I therefore, to see the indications of the spirit 
of the people as this day exhibited throughout the land.— 
From hamlet to hamlet rings the welkin cry of faith — 
rings the clarion voice of an indignant and outraged, but a 
firm and united people. Never before in our history have 
60 many |)roud American banners greeted the morn as to- 
day — never have the masses so rallied around them — never 
have so many orators strengthened the stalwart heart of 
the country with words of courage and promise — never has 
the glad Amen so rolled forth its thunder tone from thclips 
of freemen listening to the inspired utterances of Thomas 
Jefferson. 

Tiie circumstances under wliich we meet to-day are new 
and startling. Heretofore we have indulged in euloo^ies 
upon the American constitution, but luive never until now 
really comprehended the full meaning of that blessed iu" 

etrument — to-day we mean something more than eulogy 

that constitution is menaced with the dospoiler's grasp, and 
eulogy gives jdace to afaitk deep and abidiiig in the palla- 
dium of our hopes, and born of such faith comes a stern re- 
solve to maintain and upliold it in its entire scope and in- 
tegrity. 

It is given us to solve the greatest political problem 
which God propounds to the nations, viz : Whether Re- 



publican institutions are a failure ? The problem antece- 
dent to this, whether Republican institutions can be suc- 
cessfully established, has already been evolved for us by our 
fathers. But ours is a grander and a wider problem far — 
for the nations have always been making spasmodic efforts 
towards the formation of Republican institutions, but in 
most instances the blasts of adversity have ere long uprooted 
their foundations, and they have fallen into a mass of 
ruins. 

My friends are we capable of working out this problem 
successfully ? Do we bring to its solution a profound faith 
in the divine origin of Republics — a comprehensive in- 
tuition and practical experience of the blessings which 
flow from them, and a courageous devotion to them which 
shall be exemplitied in our every act, until the iron tread of 
grimvisaged war shall no more shake the land, and out of 
the smoke and din of embattled hosts, fair and radiant as the 
morning Peace shall come bearing her golden sheaves and 
fruits and flowers ? 

I hold with confidence the belief that we shall be found 
equal to the emergency, else had not been this majestic upri- 
sing of the people to vindicate the national honor— this enthu- 
siasm for liberty, which has stilled the noisy jargon of traffic, 
making the broker's counter the fountain of beneficence, and 
converted the Flora McFlimseys of Broadway and the 
Avenue into Florence Kightingales, ready angels of mercy 
for new Scutaris and Balaklavas. All this means that we 
fully appreciate the grave responsibilities which have be- 
fallen us, and like true men and women, mean to meet 
them. 

We must not think that in entering upon the solution of 
this problem, we are called to a holiday festival. We are 
to pass through many and fierce trials. The fair and young. 
and brave shall taste the bitterness of death under the 
rays of the Southern sun, and garments of mourning shall 



8 

abound in our streets. "We are to walk through the 
liery furnace of afHiction. To-day the nation o-roans with 
the pains of its second birth. Southern Hotspurs driven 
like the money changers ot okl, from the temple which 
they have desecrated, have fired upon the flag which for 
80 years has protected them — the banlis of the Potomac, 
where sleeps the Father of his country, are bristling with 
hostile cannon, and the "soft-flowing James" may ere long 
trace its courso through desolated villages and by fields of 
carnage, and stagnate with the blood of Anglo Saxon men. 
The nations of the old world look in tremulous anxiety for 
the result. Patriot hearts grow sad ; and tyrants represent- 
ing dead fogyisms, cry in exultant tones — this is the end of 
Republican Institutions — this their boasted perpetuity — this 
the great nation whose flag waved such a saucy defiance 
towards old conventionalisms — this the marvel of govern- 
ments which heralded the redemption of the world — come 
let us go up to our jubilee. 

Oh ! my friends, in this our night of gloom, upon the 
outer horizon of which I surely see the day star of hope 
faintly shining, it surely behooves us to inquire if Republi- 
can institutions are really a failure. Sad thought if they 
are ; if the nations have been slowly groping upwards 
through the long ages, only to be hurled back into anarchic 
cliaos, or confined within the iron chambers of despotism, 
whose walls gradually closing around them, shall finally 
stifle them to death. 

In such results we do not believe. Our faith in the 
saving influence of free government is altogether too deep 
and earnest. We believe that no times are so dark but 
what bright beams of God's glory are shining through that 
darkness, and His hand is pushing humanity forward all 
the time. We believe in the divine origin of republics. — 
I know that Kingship arrogates to itself a peculiar dispen- 
sation from the Most High. "By the grace ot God" we rale. 



It must certainly be by His grace alone. But Kingship has 
been most terribly startled out of its dullness sometimes ; 
made to see the hand-writing on the wall, and taught that 
there was a people behind it, from whom all government 
sprang. When Martin Luther nailed his famous protest 
upon tlie church door of Witteraberg, he struck the key 
note of ideas which forced their recognition not only upon 
Cardinal and Pope, but upon King and Emperor as well. 
The leaven infused into the church was not slow in seeking 
developcment in the state. The protest of the people 
against King-craft in state was not less earnest than that 
against Priest-craft in church. It penetrated to the cabinet 
of Philip II at Madrid, and the Dutch Republic under the 
guidance of William of Orange vindicated it upoTi the bat- 
tle fields of the Netherlands. Charles I felt its force when his 
scented Cavaliers went down before Cromwell's Covenanters 
at Naseby, and he knew its full meaning wl:en his kingly 
head bowed to the axe's stroke. Poor Louis XVI, expiating 
the crimes of his ancestors in the terrible days of the 
French Revolution, felt its deep significance, and George 
Illd came at last to recognize it when his fairest provinces 
had made good their independence of him. 

There can be no truer proposition than that a Republic 
is the best form of government for intelligent men ; such 
proposition being derived from the indications of God's 
purposes in the history of the world, and from our convic- 
tions of its appropriateness. If it is not so, progress is the 
mythic creature of distorted brains, a cobweb of fancy. — 
Allowing as a Republic does, the fullest exercise of indi- 
vidual rights consistent with the general welfare, it gives 
the freest expansion to the best instincts of humanity ; but 
the people must be educated up to the stand-point of ap- 
preciation before they are fitted to enjoy the blessings 
which flow from Republican institutions. This education 
which the world receives, is what we i^^xva. progress.^ which in- 
deed is no myth, but a vital fact whose indices are traced 



lOj 

.ill down the stream of time, exhibiting itself in science, in 
art, in letters, in religion. All tiiese seek their legitimate 
expression in government. It bears upon it3 catalogue a long 
list of sages and philosophers, of heroes and martyrs, of 
men the pioneers of their times, striking out from the deep 
ruts of error and prejudice and cant, and leading tlie race 
into new pathways of truth. 

It has been reserved for us of the 19th Century to wit- 
ness the most glorious developements which Progress, 
moulded by divine influence, has ever made. We 
have seen the old Hellenic fire relume the eyes of Gre- 
cian men not quite dead to the memories of Marathon 
and Thermopylae — the noble stand which Paris made 
behind the barricades of '48 — the students of Vienna chant- 
ing freedom strains in stately German verse, under the walls 
of the Emperors palace and the Magyars, with souls of fire, 
and sinews of iron, striking for liberty amid the mountains 
of Hungary. 

We see today freedom everywhere claiming her own. 
In obedience to her dictates, the Czar of Russia strikes the 
fetters from millions of serfs — Austria loses the fairest of 
her Italian provinces — that old mummy the Pope wrapped 
in the cerements of worn out superstitions, begins to fear for 
his temporal supremacy, as the bayonets of Napoleon cease 
to uphold it — and Italy under the sublime inspiration of 
Victor Emanuel's and Garibaldi's patriotism, takes her 
rightful position among the nations of the earth. The right 
of a majority of the people to secure and maintain a con- 
trolling infiuence in governmental afi'airs, is fast becoming 
a recognized political axiom — let Francis Joseph or Jef^ 
ferson Davis deny it as they may. 

With such lights to guide us, we are opposed to the aris- 
tocratic element arrogating to itself the right to rule, ia 
despite of democratic edict to the contrary, and we hold it 
a new and strange doctrine (though it is as old as despot- 



11 

ism itself,) that when the minority are fairly beaten at the 
ballot box, they have the slio;htest pretence for annulling 
the will of the niiijority, by an appeal to the cartridge box. 

Therefore the first gun fired by rebel hands towards Sum- 
ter's beleaguered citadel, roused in an instant the slumber- 
ing patriotism of the people. Men's eyes began to kindle 
with a new lustre. Up to the top of highest flag staft' in 
hamlet and city went the stars and strii)es, and round its 
base we swore to defend the emblem of freedom with our 
heart's best blood. Party lines were blended into one 
common impulse of duty. Out from old garrets came 
the muskets of '7G, consecrated to a new crusade for liber- 
ty. The miser's hoarded eagles were ]ilaced a glad offering 
upon his country's altar. The ]>low was left in the furrow, 
the busy spindle ceased its noisy whirl, and the brawny 
arm of the smith sought a hotter forge. The cheek of the 
maiden paled not, her step lost not its airy tread, and fal- 
tered not her voice as she said her last good bye to her lover 
bound for the war. The sound of the drum was heard in 
our streets and eager recruits kept time to its music. The 
men of God come down from their pulpits to invoke His 
blessing upon the stalwart troops marching at their 
country's call. The men of Massachusetts walked with 
firm pace through the insurgent streets of Baltimore, and 
the 19th of April 1861, reached back to fellowsliip with the 
19th of April, 1775. The cobblers of Connecticut and the 
miners of Pennsylvania, went with willing hearts to teach 
Senator Hammond the true value of mud-sills in the frame 
work of society. 

Thank God, my friends, that we live in the midst of 
these stirring times. We at^e working out the prob- 
lem. We have not yet lost the inspiration of the Cov- 
enanters and Round Heads ; the Puritan stock still lives 
buoyant as it did two centuries ago ; the Cavaliers are to 
Bee it and recognize it. Know we not that though we have 



12 

read liistory all our lives, we are making it to-day, faster 
than it was ever made before ? We thought we knew what 
" contraband ot war" meant, but Gen, Butler has given it 
a fresher and wider definition than the dictionaries ever 
contained. Never came patriot armies to defence of threat- 
ened capital so rapidly as went the Northern hosts to 
Washington, during the terrible week of suspense that suc- 
ceeded the fall of Sumter. 

Already rest the green sods of the vallc}', on martyred 
heroes bosoms. Ellsworth tearing down the hateful em- 
blem of secession, in the still gray of the earl}'- May morn 
ing, stands a fitting representative of all that is earnest 
and chivalric in American character. The story of his 
life reads like some strange legend of Knight errantry. — 
Full of all womanly gi-aces, yet born to lead bronzed and 
bearded men to the shock of battle. A Paladin of Ro- 
ruauce — the idol of the nation, 3^et confronting with the 
very incarnation of energy, the stern facts of the present. 
How the mournful requiem of 1861 fills out the measure of 
the "lo Triumphe" of 1860. By the waters of the Hud- 
son weep iiis aged parents — by far off Mississippi the heart 
of a gentle girl is wrung with keenest anguish, and with 
them a nation joins its ters. Yet, in all their sorrow, come 
to them winged with consolation the last words of the slain, 
and they know that " He who watclies the sparrow" had 
some great purpose in the dark mystery of Ellsworth's 
death. As says another, "The poor wretch who stumbled 
upon an immortality of infamy, by murdering him, died 
at the same instant. The two stand in the light of that 
event clearly revealed types of the two systems in conflict 
to-day. The one brave, refined, courtly, generous, tender 
and true ; the other, not lacking in brute courage, reckless, 
besotted, ignorant and cruel." 

The nation too mourns a Winthrop dead, just as he was 
to make the name honored anew in American history, and 



13 

tre swear to avenge the fate of Greble, so cool and dauntless 
in the hour of peril, and of Ward dying at the post of 
duty. 

We stand face to face with great events — we have met 
the irrepressible conflict which tlie ])ast has been bringino' 
to this dread issue. But if wo are true to ourselves, we 
shall triumph in the end. This country of our's with its 
broad lakes, its swift flowing rivers, its majestic mountains, 
and its vast acres of rolling prairies was meant for the 
liome of freemen. Our virgin territory was never design- 
ed as the place whereon despotism was to develope, but as 
the dwelling place for the hardy sons of toil, who should 
rear for themselves free homes on free soil, and forever 
maintain and defend them by force arms. 

I have just read in the latest European dispatches, the 
startling intelligence that France proposes to recognize the 
Southern Confederacy, and we know how the great cry 
coming up from the Manchester Mills, that " Cotton is 
King," has drowned the voice of Exeter Hall in England. 
We had no reason to expect much sympathy from the mys- 
terious man of the Tuilleries, but we had hoped something 
from the honest, earnest heart of the Englisli nation ; we 
believe still that the masses of the people of both nations 
are with us, but be that as it ma}', this rebellion must he 
put doion though the whole world say us, nay ; eight 
millions of freemen shall form a breast-work against which 
all the despotisms under the sun, shall dash in impotent 
rage. The very women shall bear the gun and wield the 
sword, and sucking infants shall be stronger than an army 
with banners. Leonidas did not teach the world in vain 
■what three hundred Spartan braves could do against the 
Persian hosts. 

I cannot leave this this branch of m}'- subject without a 
brief allusion to some of the causes which have brought 
about the present state of afi'airs. I know that we do not 



14 

care to speculate very much upon causes — we are in the 
midst of results. We are not so much in the mood of phi- 
losophising, as we are in that of fighting ; but still a tingle 
moment may not Le thus unprotitably spent. 

I believe, (h) you believe with me, that God punishes na- 
tions for their sins just as Ikj does individuals ? A great 
people may iall into the wiles of seductive influences, just as 
easily as the man Samson reeled into the fatal embrace of De- 
lilah. 1 am young yet, but young as I am, I have not been 
unmindful that America had great sins eating into the heart 
of her national greatness — sins which, unless the caustic of 
repentance was soon applied, would destroy the body poli- 
tic. It is not hard to account for some of our sins. Unex- 
ampled prosperity, such as we have enjoyed, usuallj' brings 
with it arrogance and self conceit. We have developed the 
material at the expense of the moral. 

Malcins: haste to be ricli has been the universal mania of 
the peo})le. We had s[)eculated in fancy stocks on Wall 
street, and built most magnificent cities upon paper. We 
had becotne hardened to the claims of charity, the sweet 
endearments of home and the worship of our God. Wo 
worshiped the Golden Calf. When the warning voice of 
patriotism came down from Pisgah heights of thought into 
the busy haunts of commerce, bidding us take lieed of the 
swift Maelstrom of destruction, towards which we were 
hurrying, we have dubbed it an idiotic ebullition of fanat- 
acism and bid it see how its crazy teachings aflected stocks. 
My good sir, we have said, to some true patriot all alive to 
his country's weal or woe, what you say may be theoreti- 
cally considered, very true and honest and noble, but for 
God's sake, look at stocks. Hence we have subsidized 
everything to our craving for wealth. What cared tiie bro- 
kers of Wall street, or the money changers of State street, 
if Sims was delivered up to Southern bloodhounds, and 
Anthony Burns walked with clanking fetters, under the 



15 

ror}' shadow of Fanenil Hall, provided New York Central 
was firm at 90, and the Bank dividends made their semi- 
annual visits ? Hence we have ever Ixhmi readv to com- 
])roniise, to harter principle for pelf, to uphold by North- 
ern votes in Congres;^, and Nortliei'n marshal I's staves ont- 
side of it, that cursed institution which has been the very 
cancer of death u\>nn our political system. 

Claiming to be the freest government on earth, we have 
held 4,000,000 of men in bondage. We have set at naught 
the Declaration of Independence, and have presented the 
sad spectacle to the world of theoretic civilization and 
practical barbarism. Is it any wonder that when we at last 
arise from our drunken slumber, we should awake to the 
horrors of civil war ? Do we not feel as if it was a visita- 
tion of God ; that' our sins at last had found us out? We 
shall come bravely through the trial — never fear — we have 
burst the fetters that bound us and stand erect in our man- 
hood. The horrid drama of secession is nearly played- 
out — its actors will retire amidst the hisses of Christendom. 

Can we doubt what the end of that institution which has 
been the fell upas tree of our liberties, will be ? 

Thank God that the era of compromises is ended. Com- 
promises, as if forsooth there could be a compromise be- 
tween God and the Devil. Out of our sore afflictions we 
shall come ready to build up a purer nationality — we shall 
vindicate our true national glory — for our real glory does 
not consist in the snowy sails of our commerce, swelling to 
the gales of every sea — in an expanded and ever expand- 
ing territory, in forts and arsenals, in proud navies or tri- 
umphant armies, in bales of Georgia cotton or tons of Penn- 
sylvania ore, in merchant princes palaces, or the busy hum 
of Lowell spindles, but rather in a firm, persistent, enthusias- 
tic devotion to the great principles on which our government 
is based — to Liberty, the corner stone on which the whole 



16 

fabric rests. Tliis achieved, and all other things shall be 
added thereunto. 

"War with all the horrors attendant upon it, is not after 
all, the greatest evil which can befall a nation, ignomini- 
ous peace, the loss of national honor is a direr evil still. 
Christianity folds to its embrace no craven hearts. Patrick 
Henry but put into eloquent ])hrase the far more eloquent 
sentiment of patriotic hearts, when ho said " Give me lib- 
erty or give me death." In such utterances there can be 
no ambiguous meaning ; there speaks no Delphic oracle. 

The war to which we are pledged must go on, (and it is 
well that our rulers should understand it,) until the stars and 
stripes shall wave over every state in the Union, every fort 
and arsenal stolen from us shall be restored, every cent of 
the abstracted national funds shall be paid back with inter- 
terest, and the leaders of tliis unholy rebellion suffer 
the just penalty of violated law at the end of the hangman's 
cord, or be driven into ignominious exile. Rebellion never 
lifted its defiant head in so fiendish a cause as does the 
Southern conspiracy to-day, against the mild government 
of the Federal Union. No attack had been made upon a 
single right guaranteed the South by the Constitution, nor 
was any contemplated. Her peculiar institution itself was 
only kept in being by the strong arm of federal authority — 
and yet because forsooth the control of national affairs had 
passed, by the voice of the people, out of her hands, and 
Cobb was driven from the money bags, and Floyd's chan- 
ces for robberj' were taken from him, she must needs re- 
volt. We have accepted the issue forced upon us — have 
appealed to the dread arbitrament of arms, and if in the 
struggle the last vestige of slavery is swept from the 
American continent, we are not the ones to shed very many 
or bitter tears about it. It is not our fault if Canada has 
been brought down to Virginia. 



n 

We make no war upon the Southern people as such. We- 
know that in many Southern homes, love deep and ardent 
still exists for the Union, and prayers daily ascend that the 
day of their deliverance may not be far distant, but against 
the men who have stirred up hot fanaticisms, and filled the 
ear of the Soutli with misrepresentation and abuse of every- 
thing North of Mason and Dixons line we do not make 
war — and our tents shall not be folded, nor our swords seek 
tlieir scabbards, until they at least have been made to ac- 
knowledge the supremacy of the Union. 

Today the Congress of the United States, in obedience 
to the call of the chief magistrate, meets to devise and 
adopt the best measures for the vigorous prosecution of the 
people's war. The}' go from the free homes of the North, 
and meet at the national capital, surrounded by the sol- 
diers of the people. Can it be possible that they can fail 
to catch the inspiration which wells up from the hearts of 
patriot citizens and patriot soldier}^ ? Can they forget the 
sacredness of the day on which they sit in solemn conclave? 
Shall not Washington remember Phihidelphia ? Oh ! yes, 
unless I greatly mistake the temper of our representatives, 
they will not falter in their duty. But already I see indi- 
cations that craven traitors will lay before that august as- 
sembly, certain plans of compromise. Compromise with 
armed rebels — was ever such a farce enacted in the annals 
of government ? Will some one be kind enough to indicate 
what there is to compromise ? Is Keitt again to swagger 
through Washington, and Toombs threaten to call tiie roll 
of his slaves on Bunker Hill ? We Avant no compromise, 
save tiie valid compromise of victory over rebel hosts. It 
is the only compromise which they will respect. Siiame 
upon such propositions. They can only emenate from 
hearts in sympathy with treason. The effrontery of Davis 
and the cunning of Stephens exhibits itself behind sucb 
transparent dodges. Compromisu l 



18 

•*' No ! By all the Mayflower's peril 

On the wild and wintry sea ; 
By the Pilgrim's Prayer ascending 

As he knelt with reverent knee; 
By that fairest day of summer 

When tlie tried, the true, the brave, 
Name and life and sacred honor 

To the Roll of Freedom gave; 

" By the tears, the march, the battle 

Where the noble, fearless died — 
Wild around the cannon's rattle, 

Waiting angels at their side — 
By our children's golden future, 

By our fathers' stainless shield, 
That which God and heroes left us 

We will never, never yield ! 

" Hear it ! ye who sit in council, 

We, the People, tell you so ! 
Will you venture '"Yes" to whisper 

When the millions thunder " No ?" 
Will 3' on sell the nation's birthright, 

Heritage of toil and pain, 
While a cry of shame and vengeance 

Kings from Oregon to Maine ! 

We have only one plain pathway left wherein to 
tread. It is the pathway of duty. We must prose- 
cute with vigor, this war for popular rights, until 
the insulted dignity of the nation is appeased, and free- 
dom's flag floats over every inch of the national domain. 
Then and not till then, shall we in truth know that the Un- 
ion is not a mere rope of sand, but a cordon strong and in- 
flexible, binding together one people — that secession is a 
horrid burlesque and a miserable falsehood. 



19 

Men of Onondaga : — 

I have endeavored to speak to you soberly and earn- 
estly to-day. I have indulged in no eulogy upon the glo- 
ries and blessings of the American Union, and have not 
read to yon the old story of Saratoga and Trenton and 
Yalley Forge — the one finds its grandest eulogy in your 
fields of yellow grain and liomes of thrift — the other lives 
ever fresh and beautiful in your memories. 

I have preferred to deal with the present, fraught as it 
is with such lessons of solemn import. That from such 
brief discussion as we have had together, we may all go forth 
stronger hearted and better fitted to grapple with our stern 
responsibilities, is my fervent prayer. I have sometimes 
feared for the future of my country, but the spectacle of 
to-day bids hope rise triumphant over fear. The glad day of 
deliverance surely cometh, when the clouds shall roll away 
from ensanguined fields, and the golden light of peace 
shall stream up the Southern sky, and with one strong voice 
this great people from the Penobscot to the Rio Grande shall 
echo as they never echoed before, the immortal words of 
Webster, " Liberty and Union — now and forever — one and 
inseparable." 



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